Don't limb for faster drying

[jwillett2009]

Ive read a few tips and tricks here and recently got a chance to try another. I knocked down 7 sugar maple trees about three weeks ago. I left the branches and leaves on until day before yesterday when I went to get them. I split most of it now. I have been taking a few moisture measurements with my meter and averaging around 30%. I also split some that I had cut last fall (it was bucked and piled but not split)... It reads around 45% and is noticeably much heavier. I've also found the stuff just out of the woods ALOT easier to split.

Confirmation... This trick worked for me.

[beenthere]

Great that it worked for you.  8)

What are you using for a moisture meter?
Reading anything above (and around) 30% mc usually won't register on a meter....the mc% where there is free water in the cells.

[pineywoods]

I do the same thing with all my red oak firewood. I cut the tree after it's fully leafed out and leave it in the woods for 3 weeks to a month. Then de-limb and skid it out to a landing, where it's cut to length and split. Don't have a moisture meter but It dries quickly. Dry wood is a necessity for me, I heat with a gassifier indoor stove, it definitely does not like wood that's not very dry...

[jwillett2009]

The meter I use is an Extech MO220 http://www.extech.com/instruments/product.asp?catid=11&prodid=73. I think its supposed to be accurate (within spec) between 6 and 45% although it will read higher, its just not "guaranteed" to be within the stated accuracy. Basically, you need to find the wood species you are measuring in the users manual and punch up the right catagory. I've found it to be a good meter up to this point. It will do temperature compensation also but I don't bother for firewood. My only disappointment is that it doesn't have all our native woods so sometimes you need to pick something "close" if you cant find the proper species.

[Al_Smith]

Seldom with the exception of hazard trees do I cut a live one .Most are grave yard dead .However a sugar maple will dry relatively easy if you split it in a timely fashion .

If you don't and fiddle around and let in lay in the round too long the stuff will grow mushrooms .

That trick does work because years ago I dropped fence row trees in July after the wheat was off and let them lay for a couple weeks .

[stumper]

This is an age old "trick".  By leaving the felled tree with the leaves, the leave continue to draw the mosture out of the trunk through evapotransporation.  Fell it, sever it from the stump (you must interupt the sapwood) and leave it till the leave turn brown.  It works well.  I have also had some success girdling the tree, again you must sever the sap wood. 

[jwillett2009]

This is an age old "trick".  By leaving the felled tree with the leaves, the leave continue to draw the mosture out of the trunk through evapotransporation.  Fell it, sever it from the stump (you must interupt the sapwood) and leave it till the leave turn brown.  It works well.  I have also had some success girdling the tree, again you must sever the sap wood.

I watched the leaves on the felled trees until they were dry enough that I could crumble them into little pieces. I am trying to have 5 or 6 cords of hardwood ready for the winter, 90% sugar maple and white birch, 10% other.... So this helps the case quite a bit.

What's girdling???

[CTYank]

This is an age old "trick".  By leaving the felled tree with the leaves, the leave continue to draw the mosture out of the trunk through evapotransporation.  Fell it, sever it from the stump (you must interupt the sapwood) and leave it till the leave turn brown.  It works well.  I have also had some success girdling the tree, again you must sever the sap wood.

I watched the leaves on the felled trees until they were dry enough that I could crumble them into little pieces. I am trying to have 5 or 6 cords of hardwood ready for the winter, 90% sugar maple and white birch, 10% other.... So this helps the case quite a bit.

What's girdling???

"Girdling" is the cutting of a deep groove around the base of a tree stem, deep enough to completely sever the phloem, the layer of tissue that transports water and nutrients from the roots up the tree. Lets it start drying up above while still standing.

IIRC, there have been numerous studies done on the OP's conjecture about leaving downed tree un-limbed and un-bucked until leaves dry. They all concluded that this did NOT help drying the wood.

Much better to get it bucked & limbed, split and stacked ASAP, or fell it before winter waned.

[Full Chisel]

This time I'm going with the tree sucks the gum back into the trunk, it cures and dries slower yet a better cure. It has chlorophyll and other chemical composition to keep it, "alive" longer.

Just like cutting a flower and leaving the leaves on till it goes in the vase. It preserves the flower, because it dies slower.

My chips are on the opposite theory than O-P.

[SwampDonkey]

"Girdling" is the cutting of a deep groove around the base of a tree stem, deep enough to completely sever the phloem, the layer of tissue that transports water and nutrients from the roots up the tree. Lets it start drying up above while still standing.

Xylem is to the inside of the cambium toward the pith, it conducts water and minerals and structural support. Phloem is between cambium and dead outter bark which carries photosynthates like sugar in water solution. Live xylem wood is the sapwood which also serves to store photosynthates. It becomes heartwood when extractives are stored and we most often see a color change. The live inner bark is the phloem.

[jwillett2009]

My woodlot is young Acadian forest so probably wouldn't be a tree big enough to girdle.

I will definitely knock down my wood and let the leaves dry, especially if I'm late like this year. I just moved here last year and didn't really get out in the woods until last fall.... So I'm in a bit of a crunch to get wood ready for this winter.

As for the studies, I think I've got a pretty conclusive one. Of those trees that I left in the woods.... Well, I hung one up felling it so I needed to cut a couple pieces off the bottom to get in down. Those pieces are "greener" than the rest of the tree that dried with leaves on.

I work as a technologist, so I have an open mind. I know there are lots of variables in an experiment so I'll continue to get an eye on what I do. In the meantime, im convinced it worked.

[pineywoods]

I'm with jwillet, and I'll add another piece to the study. I just finished putting up my winters supply of red oak firewood. I dropped 2 nice 16 inch red oaks and left them lay untill the leaves dried, then snaked the logs out to a hayfield. when I started cutting and splitting, the further up the trunk I went, the drier the wood. The limbs were bone dry...Might not work the same on all species, but on red oak, it makes a big difference. 

[SwampDonkey]

I know it must draw some moisture because we often times would cut in the winter and haul out whole tree (limbs and all) and the tops would leaf out in the spring before we got to bucking. Farming to get the crops in came before gathering up the firewood. Had to be moisture coming from the wood. This would be rock maple. Leaves would be about 1/2 way grown before stuff would stop, but they stayed alive for quite a little while. Also the trees would be in tall hay, not like being on gravel road or a cement slab.

[Al_Smith]

You gird a tree trust me it will be dead in short order. It was an old method they used in pioneer days that kind of let the tree dry standing up.

[woodmills1]

I thought girdling was that funny white thing I found in the dryer once that momma said wasn to makin her lokka slimmer

[Paul_H]

Wasn't that an old commercial? "my girdling is killing trees" ?

[stumper]

I like the girdling in that it keeps the tree off the ground.  Therefore out of my way and not picking up moisture from the ground.

One thing to remember when girdling is the you are cutting through the outer strongest portion of the tree.  I suggset you not girdle in the same location on the trunk as you make your felling cuts.  So for me that means I girdle at a little better then 3 feet in height.  I normally block my firewood to 18 inches in length, and may my felling cut one block up, so I girdle 2 blocks up.  I have tried girdling one block up and felling two but it is not comfortable for me to do so.

This is off suject but to save questions.  I fell one block up to save my back.  I am at a better height to make my felling cuts and drive my wedges, and limb the tree, not to mention it is easier to make my excape from the higher standing position.  I then generally mark my cuts on the way out limbing to about the half way point.  Afer I am done limbing I cut the stem in half at my last mark.  Any firewood I cut out of the limbs and the lowest block fire wood gets thrown into the bucket of the tractor.  This results in a lower stump as I do not need the height of the up cut for the notch as well.  My small tractor can generally can only skid two trees at a time so skidding four half trees is easier on my ground, easier on my tractor and easier on saw bucking cleaner wood.  I honestly have not seen a big difference but I also tell myself that loading the bucket puts more weight on the front tires for better steering and better distribution of my tractive force.

[muddstopper]

I too am agreeing with the OP assessment of drying faster with leafs on. I would never consider myself a professional logger, but growing up we cut pulp wood year round and loaded by hand. At that time everything was sold according to scale. When ever we had a large job to cut, we would lay as much wood on the ground as we could before we cut it up into 5ft lengths. There is no doubt in my mind that the trees that lay there until the leaves where wilted where a lot lighter than the trees we freshly cut. Now, I never checked the wood with anykind of moisture meter, but my back always told me the longer the wood laid with the top still on, the lighter it would be to lift on the back of the old ton truck.

[John Mc]

For most species I've experimented on, leaving the leaves on does dry faster than limbing and leaving the trunk at tree length.  It does not dry as fast as just cutting, splitting, and stacking in the sun and wind right from the get-go.

If I think I might not get back to it for a while, I leave the leaves on.

[tyb525]

I think there are so many variables in this equation it is impossible to assess whether it is true on not. It is very dependent on species, time of year, weather, temperature, etc. And since it would be impossible to exactly replicate conditions multiple times, I don't think it could ever be concluded to be true or false. Some conditions could make the wood dry faster than others.

Kind of like cutting hard maple on a full moon so it won't stain. Fact or not? I don't know. Does it work? Some say it does.

If it works for you then it works for you

[John Mc]

It is amazing the number of conflicting stories about splitting and drying firewood. Split frozen, don't split frozen. Split fresh cut, split when seasoned. Split "top down" or split "bottom up".

[doctorb]

I was looking to run an experiment and mentioned it here a year or two ago.

I will try to find a tree with a trunk which splits into two close to the ground.  I will cut each trunk off at its base, leaving two separate but hopefully equal portions of the same tree.  I can't account for diffeences in root system supplying each trunk, or potential environmental differences such as moisture and sunlight exposure between the two.

I would then cut each trunk a few feet higher, split the wood and measure the water content.  Assuming these are equal in both truncks, then I would limb and split one side, and leave the other untouched for a few weeks / months???  I think that this experiment will demonstrate if limbing a felled tree has a measureable effect on drying of the wood. 

Comments or suggestions for the experiment?

[Gary_C]

How do you plan to measure the moisture content?

Hand held moisture meters are inaccurate at moisture levels above the fiber saturation point (30+ percent) and only measure the surface moisture anyway. You can get a more accurate measure of the interior moisture by driving pins into the sample, but again conductivity readings are not good above the fiber saturation point.

So the only reliable way to measure moisture content above the fiber saturation point is the oven dry method. So unless you have a good accurate scale and oven (think autoclave) at work, you better prepare your wife to having you take over her oven at home.

Other than that, and finding similiar places on the two halves to cut samples, and bagging the samples till you weight them, should work good.

Confucius Say
A man with one watch always knows what time it is, but a man with two watches is never quite sure.

[doctorb]

I was going to use my hand-held moisture meter for the measurements.  I don't think the initial meansurmenets are particularly important, and i understand the innaccuracy of my meter at high levels of moisture content.  What would be meaningful will be the measurements at 6 months, 9 months and a year.  If there is a significant difference betwen the two halves of the tree at those later dates, then leaving the limbs in place may have a hastening effect on drying the wood.  If the moisture measurements are the same, then the hypothesis that leaving the limbs on for quicker drying would seem to not be a true. As the wood won't be ready for burning for months after the live tree is felled, I am not sure that the early measurements (4 weeks) make any difference.

[beenthere]

I thought the OP was suggesting leaving the leaves attached to draw/suck the moisture out of the limbs/trunk. ??

If that is the case, then measuring moisture in the wood between the two treatments immediately and over the first few weeks (until the leaves are dried up and no longer able to draw moisture) would be the goal. After that time, seems the wood from the two treatments could be cut into firewood (treated alike) and monitored for drying times/rates to observe any meaningful differences.

OR... is the objective to compare bucking the limbs immediately vs. a time delay before bucking on the drying rate and final moisture content?